Women are constantly being warned that eating certain foods while pregnant can be dangerous. Listeria, a bacteria that can cause miscarriage or stillbirth and salmonella, which can give newborn babies meningitis, are found in foods too numerous to mention, but all of them taste really good. Then there is alcohol, which women have recently been warned to avoid altogether (pdf). What, I wonder, would be the point of going to a fine-dining restaurant, if everything yummy appears to be off the menu?

Website The Weekly Gripe, on which you can "have your say about absolutely anything you like" has a post asking when "vegetarians are catered for why not cater for pregnant women?"

If you are rich enough to afford a £40 meal and live in or are passing through Hong Kong then look no further than the opulent Langham Hotel, where the T'ang Court restaurant has a tailor-made menu. Because pregnant women are warned off foods such as sashimi, soft cheese, pâté, raw shellfish, smoked seafood and prosciutto, many of which feature on the menus of fine dining establishments, those with a ciabatta in the oven need to adapt to their circumstances.

The chef at The T'ang has such women in mind, and has devised four six-course set dinners - one for each trimester of pregnancy and one for new mothers. Dishes such as sautéed grouper with lily bulbs and sweet peas, all rich in the type of nutrients supposedly beneficial to pregnant women, are on the menu. As the pregnancy enters the second and third trimesters, the delights on offer include diced cod, asparagus and tofu for extra protein. For new mothers, the chef recommends comforting and nutritious dishes such as steamed pumpkin with dried shrimps.

Doraku, a Japanese restaurant in Miami Beach has recently introduced a sushi-free menu for expectant mothers for $25. All items on the menu are free of preservatives and additives and everything is cooked (except for the salad). You can chow down on steamed baby spinach topped with chilled tempura sauce or shiitake mushrooms sautéed with onion and bell pepper with a chilli ponzu sauce, and follow it up with Cornish hen marinated in garlic, ginger and soy sauce, salmon teriyaki, or seafood tempura. For dessert there is banana tempura with vanilla ice cream.

I called quite a few restaurants in the UK for this piece and all the chefs I spoke to were aware of the foods that should be avoided during pregnancy, but none have as yet designed a special menu. Why not? There used to be pregnancy pizzas at Eco in Chiswick, west London, devised after receiving requests from pregnant women with bizarre cravings (the first request was for one topped with mozzarella, ham, cranberries and pistachio ice cream) but they're no longer on the menu.

Where I live, in Crouch End, the Nappy Valley of north London, there are scores of restaurants and thousands of potential customers straining through their designer maternity wear. Why is there a dearth of pregnancy menus in Britain? Rather than spend forever poring over the menu and quizzing the staff on the ingredients in every dish you might fancy, wouldn't it be better to be given a choice of dishes you know are appropriate?

That said, maybe the whole thing is just unnecessary and faddish. I asked my mother, who had three babies in the 1960s, if she was warned off any particular foods during her pregnancy. "No," she says, "but we knew to eat plenty of tripe and onions, and drink a bottle of Guinness a day." Her cravings were for picked onions, salad cream sandwiches and ice-lollies. Stout aside, that sounds like the basis of a pregnancy menu to me. What else would you add?